Receive these ramblings through your e-letterbox

Thursday, 27 November 2008

ANOTHER WICKED flu has had me cast down these last few days which is the very last thing we could do with right now. There simply was not time to get ill! But I had to give in to the sofa as my body and head felt quite entirely drained of life. Today I am upright again tho on the phone I still sound like an old horse who has smoked 80 fags a day all his life.I have been finishing off a drawing this afternoon which I had started some weeks ago. Here it is above, Hiding the Hedgehog ... I have not the faintest idea what it's about ... I'll leave you to imagine a tale around it! This drawing, along with two other recent pencil doodlings, The Spoon-Eared Child and The Coffeepot, are being offered as prints in my shop in honour of a sort of One-More-Week-To-Go-Sale ... in fact it isn't really a sale at all, since everything's still the same price but I can't think of another word! Basically, I have decided to temporarily close the shop when we head off to give me a little breather while we embark on our grand journey and anyway, the last post date for those of you Over The Sea is looming too.So all that is a round about way of saying Roll Up! Roll Up!Last chance to grab Christmas presents in the Hermitage Etsy Shop!The blinds will be pulled down over the frosted windows of my emporium on Friday 5th December.. so .. quick!I will of course be opening it up again come the new year, hopefully with some new drawings therein.Meanwhile I'll leave you wondering why on earth that hedgehog needs to be hidden...

Nature has it's own way of forcing us to slow down and to take stock. After saying that I do hope you make a massive recovery now that the day is looming. We'll miss you dreadfully but it'll be all the merrier when you return! These drawings really are the most exquisite. love Jess x

PG is right, it would make a great netsuke. I love the blanket stitch on the hem of her coat too.

Rima - aren't you going to keep the Spoon-eared Child for a tale? Imagine this... a tale around those three images, the S-E Child, the Coffeepot and the Hidden Hedgepig... Go on Rima, imagine it... and then write it when you're better... on bits of rapscallion paper that come to hand.

Of course one must hide a hedgehog.Particularly if some wicked witch turns a handsome forest fellow into one because she had unrequited love and his actions were rather prickly toward her, and she could not figure how to make him her own love. So...

Now the question is, while she could hide the hedgehog under her arm to bring him into her wicked home without suspicions by the rest of the village, how was she to return him to his earthly form? And would he change his prickly ways or...

Take care of that cold. You don't want to be sick while launching the HM Wheeled Palace into the wonderful seas of adventure. I am thinking of you and I will send the Tres Deseos translation this weekend.

Oh poor you, Rima. I do hope you recover really quickly. Hedgehogs are me so I've had to go and order a print from Etsy! Plus that lovely one you used to have at the top of your blog. My step daughter is just about to have a baby and I thought it would look wonderful on her nursery wall.

There once was a hedgehog in possession of amazing magical talents. Some said he could conjure candy floss from thin air, others that he had once stared several minutes at a mouse who then suddenly transformed into a golden horse who went on to win the Grand National. He could make it rain. He could make it stop raining. Naturally, his unusual powers earned him great acclaim thoughout his homeland and he was most sought after to perform various and sundry feats at all hours of the day or night. This continued for many years until the poor hedgehog - who really wanted nothing more than to be left alone to munch carrots and listen to Bach in the solitude and comfort of his own home, for he was in fact a most solitary soul - decided to renounce magic forever and disappear. Plotting his escape in minute detail for several months, he eventually stowed away on a ocean liner bound for Greece., Having read about the famed beauty of the Greek Islands, he thought the climate would suit him, and the food sounded especially interesting. Also, no one knew him there so, as long as he kept his strange and wonderful abilities secret, he could live in quiet and peace, which was his greatest desire. So, off to Greece he sailed. Upon landing, however,, he began to encounter some difficulty. So many people crowding around, he knew it would be impossible to get out to the countryside without one last magical spell. So, sighing, he scrunched up his little face, thought really hard, in colour, and ...poof...he found himself in a most idyllic setting, by the blue-green Grecian sea, with the sun shining softly down on his furry little face. Then he heard a wee gasp and turned around. A small, shy girl was standing directly behind him. “Where did you come from?”, she inquired, more amused than shocked. The hedgehog knew he had to think fast, or months and months of careful planning would be for naught, but try as he might, he couldn’t thing of any explanation that sounded the least bit plausible. The little girl continued to stare at him in a most quizzical fashion. Then slowly she spoke...”Are you a magical hedgehog??”. Our little friend’s heart nearly stopped. Suddenly they heard voices coming up the hill behind them. “Quickly”, said the child, “get beside me and I’ll hide you until they pass. Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.” And so they ducked inside the tall grasses and waited. Soon they.........

About Me

Rima Staines is an artist using paint, wood, word, music, animation, clock-making, puppetry & story to attempt to build a gate through the hedge that grows along the boundary between this world & that. Her gate-building has been a lifelong pursuit, & she hopes to have perhaps propped aside even one spiked loop of bramble (leaving a chink just big enough for a mud-kneeling, trusting eye to glimpse the beauty there beyond), before she goes through herself.

Always stubborn about living the things that make her heart sing, Rima lives with her partner Tom and their young son in Hedgespoken - an offgrid home and travelling theatre built on a vintage Bedford RL truck.

Rima’s inspirations include the world & language of folktale; faces of people who pass her on the street; folk music & art of Old Europe & beyond; peasant & nomadic living; magics of every feather; wilderness & plant-lore; the margins of thought, experience, community & spirituality; & the beauty in otherness.

Crumbs fall from Rima’s threadbare coat pockets as she travels, & can be found collected here, where you may join the caravan.